Like the new look?

Leave The Office has had a facelift. I think it looks tidier now, but I would like to hear some honest feedback as to the layout of the site.

Just remember it’s never finished!

All comments will be much appreciated on the new design or anything else for that matter.

Just to make things perfectly clear for those that see leaving the office as trying to take an easy option or to escape one’s “life”.

If anybody thinks that jumping off the treadmill that is the working week is all about taking a lifelong vacation with no real responsibilities then think again. It is the complete opposite!

The only stories you hear of people who change their lives in this way are the success stories, so of course it all sounds great. It’s hard work, it takes years to come together and I am only just learning this myself. Stupid or what eh? I’ve also learned a few things about myself already as I stand at the starting line thinking about how to go about all this, trying not to get discouraged seeing so many so far ahead of me. I must stop thinking about this as a race and concentrate.

Well this is going to be a bigger job than I imagined, but anything worth doing isn’t easy, so I’ve got to get my head down and start improving on my ability to create quality website content.

I said this blog was going to be a testing ground and it is. The quality of this site is likely to be all over the place and, for a while pretty boring because it’s literally where I’ll be making all my rough notes preparing! This could prove to be a really interesting thing to read or totally off-putting, so lets see.

I’m already impressed with the number of unique visitors to this site already and I have done no web promotion or even any work on getting this blog into search engines. I haven’t even thought of any keywords apart from “leave the office”!

I will have some time to get my act together and get into developing mode after tonight as I will have 6 days away from the office! I really want to make something work and if I am to achieve my goal of earning some money from this site by the end of January I will have to do something.

So my intention is now set in words, in time & online for anyone to see. I don’t care if it is only 1 cent, but the intention is to prove I can make money in a way I haven’t done before.

So what do I have to consider?
No matter how much I read about optimising a website for search engines, ad placement, advertising etc. I find it all a little overwhealming. Every website I visit seems to be miles ahead of me already.

Am I putting too much pressure on myself to get results quickly? I think it’s fair to say I do always expect to get things right first time, although I seldom do! This time I am going to try really hard not to get disheartened when things don’t fall into place easily.

Also it’s time I started to take more interest in people out there instead of just writing about my boring endeavours in every post, so please leave comments. That way I may have some inspiration for other topics of writing.

The hardest part of running a website is making it interesting and creating content that is worth reading and even re-visiting. It is this factor that sees me up against quite a hurdle.

I am having a hard time knowing what to include here at Leave The office and I am well aware that, so far as just a blog it is pretty boring, but that’s ok. I have decided to publish my pages as I go instead of making sure they are ready first or I won’t get to publish any.

At least then there is a chance for me to adapt what I have created from any feedback I receive. I have lots of ideas that don’t go much beyond a page title, so it is imperative that I work on one idea at a time and let the content evolve live on the site, so it might be entertaining checking here from time to time to see if you can catch me at work and spotting my mistakes as I edit my pages!

I know it’s a cliché, but here’s to New Year’s resolutions. For those who have made them, good luck with sticking to them.
Mine is to move on to new adventures and to not just stick with what I already know…. or at least think I know.

Happy New Year.